a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Game 67 of 82: Utah Jazz at San Antonio Spurs (22-45)

1) The Jazz have been [mathematically] eliminated from the playoffs.
2) Tyrone Corbin decided to start a front court of Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter tonight.

There were various good things to take away from this game, but I think I speak for everyone when I say the one highlight we will all remember from this game is #POTUJ (shoutout to @JazzBasketball1 for the hashtag) Randy Rigby singing along to Sweet Caroline in the crowd:

Post-Game Quotage**Tyrone Corbin on the game
The first half, we did a relatively good job up until the last four or five minutes of the half of keeping them off the 3-point line…and they just took off from there. So, you know, I thought our guys competed hard, and that’s the thing I’m impressed with, that these guys come out, and fight hard, and we had a chance. And just give them credit, they shot the ball extremely well.**Corbin on Derrick Favors’ performance tonight
He’s getting better. His offensive game on the post is coming better…We gon need all these guys to continue to grow, man, and as I said earlier, we don’t wanna just show up and let the season just kinda come and go. We need to learn and get better, and fight every night out there and see where we go from here.**Corbin on Enes Kanter’s performance as a starter tonight
We got in a little foul trouble there, and it hurt us a little bit. But I, you know, they’re getting better. You know, it gave us a chance, had to get Marvin [Williams] in there and play him a little extended, we got in such foul trouble with the two big guys…There will be times he’ll be effective for us, and at times we need to pull back from it a little bit.

**Derrick Favors, asked to talk about his performance and career-high in points tonight
Yeah, man, you know, just a great night for me. You know, my teammates did a good job finding me on the post and in my spots, and you know, I was hitting shots. You know, just one of those nights for me…You know, it’s an honor to play against a guy like Tim Duncan. So you know, I go out there and I just play as hard as I can. If I score, I score. If I don’t, I don’t, but you know, just playing against Tim Duncan, you know, just speaks for itself.**Favors on starting alongside Enes Kanter
You know, it’s something different. You know, I was used to playing with Marv throughout the whole season, but you know, the Spurs came out with a big lineup. You know, coach wanted to go with a big lineup, and you know, just gotta deal with it.**Favors on the Spurs
Every time we play the Spurs, man, you get the same thing. You know, they a team that never stop moving. You know, they play as a team. They play together. You know, they can hit shots. They got a lotta great players on their team that make big plays, and you know, it’s amazing to watch, man. It’s just something we can learn from.**Gordon Hayward on the Spurs and the game
They’re a good team. They’ve proven that ever since I’ve been in the league. Seems like they know how to win basketball games, and they get the job done…I thought we did, we fought. We definitely didn’t give up. We played ’til the end, and hopefully we can come out with the same effort tomorrow.

Selfie Report

Unintentional Dirty Quote Machines of the Night (UDQM)**Matt Harpring on Kawhi Leonard: He’s got very large hands. And Popovich said, “I see something in him. He could be my guy.”**Harpring on Boris Diaw: 6-8, 250. You don’t think his body can move like it does, but he’s pretty quick. And his ball-handling skills is pretty good, too.**Craig Bolerjack: It’s cold, it’s hard, and it’s a fact. (H/T @RxMike12)**Tyrone Corbin: Tim Duncan, one of the great, if not the grea–some people’s opinion, all-time, one of the big guys to play this game. If you can’t get up for that kind of guy, then something’s wrong with you.